CIG, The lack of NPC; presence travelers, patrols, escorts, pirates, haulers, anything. It's starting to shape player expectations in ways that hurt gameplay. When a system feels empty, players subconsciously normalize it. So when nothing interrupts a cargo run, it feels “correct.” And when pirates do show up, it feels like an out‑of‑nowhere anomaly instead of expected gameplay. The reverse is also true: When no security forces ever swoop in to pressure pirates, some players start treating ramming or crash‑tactics as the default loop because there’s no living world pushing back. Right now the universe feels like someone keeps bumping the domino setup every patch — some things work, some things don’t, but the biggest issue is simply how barren it feels moment to moment. NPCs don’t need to be perfect. They just need to exist consistently. A living system ... even a rough one ... would do more for immersion, risk, and player behavior than any single feature on the roadmap.